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I remember the CBC doing lots of reporting on the Phoenix scandal a while back. Impression I got was that the Liberals inherited a lousy situation from Harper's government and weren't on the ball enough to fix or contain it promptly. Not sure how fair that characterization was, but that seemed like the narrative at the time.

Might be an OK-enough description.

It was the Harper government who initially came up with the idea: a central pay system for all employees, saving money by not having hundreds of pay clerks spread across the country. One of these things that sounds good in theory but may not work well in practice.

I think it was also their plan to place the office way out in the maritimes, in an area where bandwidth and other infrastructure would be a problem.

However, the decision to go live with the system (using it for some employees but not others) was made by the Liberal government. And after problems started showing up after the initial launch, the Liberals then decided to expand it to other employees. So, I do think the majority of the blame does belong to the Liberals.

A list of the problems and issues with the system:
- The obvious problems with people not getting paid
- Underestimate of the volume of data in the system, leading to sluggish system performance
- Security issue, where managers were given access to employee information when they should not have
- During the conversion, it was found that some employees had been getting paid too much under the old system (with the employees not recognizing the error). Once their pay was corrected (downwards), many complained thinking they had a pay cut

I've got a friend who works for CRA. According to her, one of the hardest hit groups are those with "unusual" jobs (e.g. people working on ships for extended periods.)

Anyway you slice it, many in the PS will get it in the shorts this upcoming tax season - just because you didn't get the right pay in in your bank account is no excuse for not giving all the taxes you are supposed to.

I'm glad that part of my income is military - and that the military doesn't use Phoenix. And that since the shenanigans with Phoenix started I haven't done any of the big things that cause problems, so my pay hasn't been screwed up.

Anyway you slice it, many in the PS will get it in the shorts this upcoming tax season - just because you didn't get the right pay in in your bank account is no excuse for not giving all the taxes you are supposed to.

I would always assume that your taxes would depend on money actually paid, rather than what you were supposed to be paid, but maybe I'm wrong.

On the other hand, I could also see a major issue if someone's doesn't get paid enough for this physical year, but gets back pay the following year, kicking them into a higher tax bracket.

During the election, Trudeau promised it would be the last under the "First Past the Post" system. So, the Liberals created a committee to investigate.

A year later, the committee came up with a report recommending a referendum pitting first-past-the-post against Proportional representation. ...
the Liberals have launched a web site survey, and will be sending out a bunch of postcards to people. The on line survey is being strongly criticized for being exceptionally vague

If you think the web survey launched by the Liberals was silly, you can always try the alternative survey, which is silly but on purpose.

During the election, Trudeau promised it would be the last under the "First Past the Post" system. So, the Liberals created a committee to investigate.

A year later, the committee came up with a report recommending a referendum pitting first-past-the-post against Proportional representation. The Liberal minister in charge then criticized the committee for not coming up with a specific system. (The Cynic in me might think she was complaining they didn't recommend ranked ballots since it would have favored the Liberals most strongly.)

An update to this issue...

The Liberals have officially cancelled their plans to change the electoral system, claiming "There was no consensus".

The NDP is of course quite upset (they were pushing for proportional representation). I suspect the conservatives are glad (since any potential change would have put them at a disadvantage).

I guess this does count as a broken election promise. (I'm glad they broke it however.)

I'm hoping the Trump Wing of the Conservatives will split their votes between her and Kevin O'Leary, opening up a window of opportunity for a more rational moderate to take the leadership.

Between the two of 'em, they pretty much are Trump. She parrots Trumpian rhetoric and he has the attitude and personal history. Hopefully they won't be voltronning into one candidate. I found an article on O'Leary's business history here. Looks like he did a good job of making some money for himself but not a very good job of building a viable company. Sounds familiar.

Between the two of 'em, they pretty much are Trump. She parrots Trumpian rhetoric and he has the attitude and personal history. Hopefully they won't be voltronning into one candidate. I found an article on O'Leary's business history here. Looks like he did a good job of making some money for himself but not a very good job of building a viable company. Sounds familiar.

still o'leary doesn't have the nativist baggage.

i'd take a straight free market fundamentalist over someone like Trump, so saddled with irrational belief on the social conservative/revanchist side of things

that said, no big fan of o'leary over here. he'll just apply his free market mantra to every problem without deviation

__________________“ it has become my conviction that things mean pretty much what we want them to mean. We’ll pluck significance from the least consequential happenstance if it suits us and happily ignore the most flagrantly obvious symmetry between separate aspects of our lives if it threatens some cherished prejudice or cosily comforting belief"
-Iain Banks

__________________“ it has become my conviction that things mean pretty much what we want them to mean. We’ll pluck significance from the least consequential happenstance if it suits us and happily ignore the most flagrantly obvious symmetry between separate aspects of our lives if it threatens some cherished prejudice or cosily comforting belief"
-Iain Banks

O'Leary was also seen hawking wine on QVC recently, somewhat reminiscent of Trump Steaks. You're right though, he doesn't seem to willing to go with the anti-immigrant scare tactics.
Also, I recently found out about the Beaverton. Didn't know you guys had your own version of the Onion. It's pretty funny.

And O'Leary's out now. Backing Maxime Bernier. I remember him being a climate skeptic and the Canadian version of a libertarian. Think I recall him referring to himself in the third person in an interview once. Could be a fun leader of the opposition.

Well, that was quick. I guess its not too surprising, given the fact that he joined the race rather late, and lacked the ability to speak french.

Have to admit, I haven't paid that much attention to the race. What little I know:
- Chong actually has a carbon tax proposal in his platform (so I guess not all conservatives are global warming deniers)
- Bernier actually favors legalization of pot. Good for him
- One or 2 social conservatives in the race (Trost). Hope they don't come anywhere near winning

Well, that was quick. I guess its not too surprising, given the fact that he joined the race rather late, and lacked the ability to speak french.

Have to admit, I haven't paid that much attention to the race. What little I know:
- Chong actually has a carbon tax proposal in his platform (so I guess not all conservatives are global warming deniers)
- Bernier actually favors legalization of pot. Good for him
- One or 2 social conservatives in the race (Trost). Hope they don't come anywhere near winning

Well, my ballot arrived today. Of course, with his late pull-out, O'leary was still on the ballot. I was briefly tempted to vote him #1 just to mess with his head, but I stuck with Chong as I had planned all along.

I've been getting e-mails for a few weeks now from the various candidates, and the differences in tone are quite interesting. They all say they're the one who will beat Trudeau in 2019, but some are more strident about how bad Trudeau is than others. I just hope whoever does win won't feel the need to keep working the "He doesn't do things the way we would, therefore he's a disaster" angle.

And although Trost was always my last place option, he really cemented it by being the only one to robocall me.

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

I was briefly tempted to vote him #1 just to mess with his head, but I stuck with Chong as I had planned all along.

Yeah, if I were a voting member of the party, I might have selected Chong myself (based on the fact that he's not a global warming denier, and doesn't seem to be a hard-right social conservative like some of the others.)

A couple of minor things going on with the government (well, apart from the leadership races and potential trade war with the U.S.)

Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan is being criticized, for both exaggerating his role in the Afghanistan war (claiming that he was an 'architect' for the plans). And, some have raised issues of a potential conflict of interest, based on the fact that he refused to launch an investigation into the handling of detainees in Afghanistan (something that he was involved in.)

And the Liberal government is trying to change some of the rules used in the house of commons, supposedly to reduce "petty partisan squabbles", but such rules would eliminate much of the ability of the opposition parties to ask questions of the government and influence legislation.

Let's see if Justin follows the usual plan of Jean Chretien (ignore the calls for the Minister to step down until something else happens to keep attention away), or Brian Mulroney (quickly fire the scandal bringer to show that scandal isn't tolerated).

Let's see if Justin follows the usual plan of Jean Chretien (ignore the calls for the Minister to step down until something else happens to keep attention away), or Brian Mulroney (quickly fire the scandal bringer to show that scandal isn't tolerated).

I suspect he'll use the Shawinigan example instead of Baie Comeau....

To me, Justin Trudeau seems like a "nice guy:" friendly, easy-going, and slow to anger. (Disclaimer: I'm actually not very good at "reading" people--I could be totally wrong here.) So his approach when a high-profile person like his Minister of Defence spins a tall tale while in the public eye would be similar as if his daughter did the same thing: sit down with the person say, "Don't do that again, eh?"

And that's a problem. This is his Minister of Defence, a high profile cabinet position, not his daughter telling a story to her grade school class. They probably require different responses.

__________________The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French)Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum.

Good grief, a guy with Sajjan's legitimately awesome resume lying to boost himself? That's a disappointment. Must be enormously frustrating for Trudeau to have a high-profile, well-respected and electorally valuable cabinet minister pull something like that. JT does have a somewhat soft public image, but we've seen some anger in him on occasion. We all remember the dreaded "elbowgate".

To me, Justin Trudeau seems like a "nice guy:" friendly, easy-going, and slow to anger.

Not sure if that a perfect description of him. Yes, he may be a "nice guy" when it comes to letting people take selfies of him, but he can get frustrated/annoyed/etc. when things aren't going his way. Remember "elbow-gate".

Remember, there were 2 issues here... not just Sajjan lying to pad his resume, but also a possible conflict of interest in the investigation of Canadian actions in Afghanistan.

Yeah, but you can't really blame him for the conflict of interest thing. Sure, he should recuse himself from being directly involved, but you really can't complain about the Minister of Defense being the MP with the most military experience.

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

Yeah, but you can't really blame him for the conflict of interest thing. Sure, he should recuse himself from being directly involved, but you really can't complain about the Minister of Defense being the MP with the most military experience.

The knives are really starting to come out. From an e-mail from Maxime Bernier today:

Quote:

And while Andrew Scheer is holding meetings in my riding with the big dairy union, rallying to defeat me with the votes of hard-core Quebec leftists, I’m going to keep fighting for fairness for every single Canadian. {emphasis in original}

Oh no, not the leftists!

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

Okay, now it's getting weird in the Conservative Leadership race. I just got an e-mail from O'Toole's campaign that claims:

Quote:

Members of another campaign team took to social media to encourage the burning of a photo of Erin O’Toole, his wife and two young children.

But I can't find any evidence for that via Googling, and there's nothing on the news sites I looked at. So, did someone really do something that stupid, or is O'Toole stupid enough to make up such a story?

Either way it's a bit boggling.....

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

Okay, now it's getting weird in the Conservative Leadership race. I just got an e-mail from O'Toole's campaign that claims:

But I can't find any evidence for that via Googling, and there's nothing on the news sites I looked at. So, did someone really do something that stupid, or is O'Toole stupid enough to make up such a story?

Either way it's a bit boggling.....

It's a bit weird for a man to have the first name of Erin, which in the US almost exclusively a female first name....

__________________Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty.

Okay, now it's getting weird in the Conservative Leadership race. I just got an e-mail from O'Toole's campaign that claims:

But I can't find any evidence for that via Googling, and there's nothing on the news sites I looked at. So, did someone really do something that stupid, or is O'Toole stupid enough to make up such a story?

And for today, we have O'Toole taking a subtle shot at Andrew Scheer with a nice bit of negging.....

Quote:

In fact, I can see Andrew playing a prominent role in an Erin O'Toole Government - perhaps taking on his first role as a minister, defending our conservative principles in Question Period for the first time.

...but then he muffs it by thinking "No, the stupid people won't get the subtlety, I'd better spell it out for them...."

Quote:

The difference between us is experience.

Oh, so close!

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

__________________The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French)Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum.

So, now an interesting twist. There's been much made of the fact that Conservative party membership has gone from about 90,000 to over 270,000 during the course of this leadership campaign. But an e-mail I just received indicates that they're so far only received about 120,000 votes.

Now, there are a lot of drop-off places around, so I'm sure there will be more votes cast, but mail-in was supposed to be the primary means for casting votes. So I consider it unlikely that more than half the eligible members would be using the drop-off places. It makes me wonder how many people might not even vote, and how that will affect things.

It was noted that O'Leary signed up a whole lot of new members, and I wonder if a lot of them decided to give up on the race after he dropped out, rather than support someone else.

__________________Obviously, that means cats are indeed evil and that ownership or display of a feline is an overt declaration of one's affiliation with dark forces. - Cl1mh4224rd

So Andrew Scheer takes it. Pretty boring, but Harper was dull and he was a very effective party leader. Colorful political bosses have their down sides. Still, speaking solely as a spectator Bernier would have been more fun. Leitch had me worried and it seems she was soundly rejected.

So Andrew Scheer takes it. Pretty boring, but Harper was dull and he was a very effective party leader. Colorful political bosses have their down sides. Still, speaking solely as a spectator Bernier would have been more fun. Leitch had me worried and it seems she was soundly rejected.

Scheer's a social conservative so more time in the opposition chair for the Conservatives. Chong probably had the best chance to move the party forward into continuing relevance but at least the Trumpist candidates lost.

Scheer's a social conservative so more time in the opposition chair for the Conservatives. Chong probably had the best chance to move the party forward into continuing relevance but at least the Trumpist candidates lost.

He does hold anti-abortion/anti-gay-marriage positions, but from what I hear he plans to avoid those issues and stick to fiscally conservative policies. (Probably a smart thing to do.) He's against a carbon tax, but still thinks that we need a plan to address global warming.

The surprising thing is that he's only 32 years old. Younger than Pierre Trudeau. If this keeps up, look for the NDP to nominate a toddler for partly leader next.

He does hold anti-abortion/anti-gay-marriage positions, but from what I hear he plans to avoid those issues and stick to fiscally conservative policies. (Probably a smart thing to do.) He's against a carbon tax, but still thinks that we need a plan to address global warming.

The surprising thing is that he's only 32 years old. Younger than Pierre Trudeau. If this keeps up, look for the NDP to nominate a toddler for partly leader next.

I think you mean Justin Trudeau. Pierre would be 97 if he was alive today.

__________________The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French)Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum.

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